Battle of Fort Henry

The Battle of Fort Henry was an American Civil War battle which occurred on 6 February 1862 at Fort Henry along the Tennessee River in Tennessee.

On 5 September 1861, Union general Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, Kentucky, a major transportation hub at the mouth of the Tennessee River. In January 1862, General Henry W. Halleck planned an offensive into pro-Union eastern Tennessee, which was occupied by the Confederates; he sent Don Carlos Buell to march on Nashville as Grant led the Army of the Tennessee against the Tennessee River forts. He left Cairo, Illinois with 15,000 troops in two divisions, accompanied by Andrew Hull Foote's US Navy flotilla of 7 ships. On 4-5 February, Grant landed his divisions in different locations around Fort Henry, a Confederate fort along the Tennessee River. The Union ironclads shelled the fort until Tilghman agreed to surrender, with the Union ironclad USS Essex being seriously damaged and losing 32 crewmen; its commander William D. Porter was wounded. Grant wired a message to Halleck reporting his success and his intent to move on to Fort Donelson; Halleck said that the Union flag had been planted in Tennessee and would never be removed.